Mattie taylor

There’s something unmistakably genuine about Mattie Taylor. The Portland, Tennessee, country-pop singer-songwriter has built her career the same way she writes her songs, from real life, with heart, determination, and an unwavering sense of who she is.

Raised in a small Tennessee town just north of Nashville, Taylor began pursuing music at an early age. At 9, she started working with renowned vocal coach and author Renee Grant-Williams while competing in local vocal competitions. By 14, she was taking her voice beyond the practice room, performing anywhere people would listen: farmers' markets, fairs, festivals, and community events. At 15, she recorded her first original song, beginning the transition from young vocalist to songwriter and recording artist.

Those early hometown stages became the foundation for an independent career that has steadily expanded throughout Nashville and beyond. Taylor has performed during CMA Fest and Tennessee Songwriters Week and made her debut at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Cafe as part of Chick Singer Night. She has also become a familiar presence at events including the Middle Tennessee Strawberry Festival, Americana Celebration, Robertson County Fair, Sevier County Fair and Nashville Farmers’ Market.

Along the way, Taylor has shared stages with some of country and bluegrass music’s most respected performers, including Linda Davis and Rhonda Vincent, and has opened for Suzy Bogguss, Rockland Road and the grandchildren of the Statler Brothers. She has also taken her voice to the sports world, performing the national anthem at GEODIS Park and for the Nashville Sounds.

But Taylor’s story is as much about the songs as it is about the stages.

A songwriter who has never been afraid to put her own experiences on paper, Taylor took an important leap with the release of her first solo-written single, “Livin’ For It.” Since then, she has continued developing a catalog that includes “My Favorite Chapter,” “Love Is True,” “I Should Go,” “Dear Cowboy,” and her most recent release, “Amen To That.” Her music blends contemporary country-pop with the values, memories, and everyday experiences of the Tennessee community that raised her.

Her songs and story have attracted attention from outlets including All Country News, Nashville.com and The Tennessee Magazine, while her music has received radio airplay from Illinois to Nashville. Her independent releases have also demonstrated a distinctly personal visual style. The video for “My Favorite Chapter,” filmed at the historic Thomas Drugs in Cross Plains, Tennessee, embraces the nostalgia of small-town life, while “Love Is True” finds Taylor kayaking through the Tennessee landscape, another reflection of an artist who prefers to make the world surrounding her music feel as personal as the songs themselves.

Taylor cites artists such as Kelsea Ballerini and Carly Pearce as influences, but she isn't interested in becoming someone else's version of a country artist. The goal has always been to sound and feel like Mattie Taylor.

That authenticity is perhaps most evident onstage. Whether she is performing at a Nashville songwriter venue, a major festival, or beneath a pavilion in the same Middle Tennessee communities where she first learned how to connect with an audience, Taylor brings the same approach: tell the story, sing it honestly, and make the person listening feel like they're part of it.

It is why people increasingly aren't simply showing up to hear a song. They're showing up for Mattie.

Still firmly connected to the Portland community that raised her, Mattie Taylor is building a career in Nashville, one song and one stage at a time, representing a new generation of independent country artists and proving that ambition and authenticity don't have to compete.

For Taylor, the small-town beginning isn't something to outgrow.

It's the heart of the story.